26. X.

Yesterday I received your letter of 24. X. and I am replying, at your request, immediately.

I cannot send the letter on now: I do not send through the deadletter route to the address I have, but only by chemistry, and I do not have time to rewrite the letter by this method. Yesterday I wrote to the addressee*, explaining what the letter concerns, and I hope in the near future to send him the entire letter as well. But perhaps you could rewrite it in an unbound book using chemistry — then I will send it at once.

I will send the address to my sister: she was not in Paris in September, so it is unlikely you were there at the same time. I hope you wrote her a few words yourself at the address I gave you?

Now to business.

Your letter to me makes a strange impression. If one excludes the information about addresses and transmissions, it contains only reproaches — bare reproaches without any explanation whatsoever on the substance of the matter. The reproaches even extend to attempts at sarcasm ("Are you convinced that you did this to the benefit of the Russian workers' movement

* To G. V. Plekhanov. Ed.

or to the benefit of Plekhanov?") — but of course I will not exchange sarcasms with you any further.

You reproach me for having "advised against" 57. You transmit my words very inaccurately. I remember well that I did not express myself categorically, not unconditionally: "We are unable to advise at the present moment," I wrote — that is, I directly conditioned our decision upon a preliminary clarification of the matter. What this clarification should have consisted of was clear from my letter: it was necessary for us to give ourselves a full account of whether there had truly been a "turn" in the *Rabochaya Mysl'* (as we were informed and as we had the right to conclude from the fact that you approached Plekhanov with an offer of participation) and what sort of turn exactly.

On this, the fundamental and principal question, you — not a word.

That we regard the *Rabochaya Mysl'* as an organ of a particular tendency with which we disagree most seriously — you have long known this. In an organ of such a tendency both I and the addressee of your long letter directly refused to participate several months ago, and it is understandable that, acting thus ourselves, we could not but advise the same to others.

But we were put in "difficulty" by the news of a "turn" in the *Rabochaya Mysl'*. A genuine turn could substantially alter the matter. It is natural therefore that in my letter I above all expressed the desire to find out all the particulars about the turn — and you did not answer this at all.

However, perhaps you consider that the answer to my question about the turn is contained in your letter to a friend?* Perhaps, if you addressed yourself to Plekhanov on behalf of the editorial board of the *Rabochaya Mysl'*, then your letter to the friend can be considered an authentic expression of the editorial board's views? If so, I am inclined to draw the conclusion that there is no turn at all. If I am mistaken — I ask you to clarify my error. The other day another close supporter of Plekhanov wrote to me about a turn in the *Rabochaya Mysl'*. But, being in correspondence with you, I

* Apparently, this concerns Yu. O. Martov. Ed.